Electronic gaming machines (EGMs) or gaming machines provide a variety of wagering games such as slot games, video poker games, video blackjack games, roulette games, video bingo games, keno games and other types of games that are frequently offered at casinos and other locations. Play on EGMs typically involves a player establishing a credit balance by inputting money, or another form of monetary credit, and placing a monetary wager (from the credit balance) on one or more outcomes of an instance (or single play) of a primary or base game. In many games, a player may qualify for secondary games or bonus rounds by attaining a certain winning combination or triggering event in the base game. Secondary games provide an opportunity to win additional game instances, credits, awards, jackpots, progressives, etc. Awards from any winning outcomes are typically added back to the credit balance and can be provided to the player upon completion of a gaming session or when the player wants to “cash out.”
Typical games use a random number generator (RNG) to randomly determine the outcome of each game. The game is designed to return a certain percentage of the amount wagered back to the player (i.e., return-to-player) over the course of many plays or instances of the game. The return-to-player and randomness of the RNG are critical to ensuring the fairness of the games and are therefore highly regulated. Upon initiation of play, the RNG randomly determines a game outcome and symbols are then selected which correspond to that outcome. Notably, some games may include an element of skill on the part of the player and are therefore not entirely random.
One issue with skill-based games is that gaming regulatory authorities generally require that gaming machines maintain a minimum return-to-player. Thus, in order to satisfy such regulatory requirements, manufactures are required to prove that the gaming machine satisfies the return-to-player requirements set forth by the regulatory authority. Conversely, casinos, hotels, and/or other gaming machine operators require assurances that the gaming machine does not payout more than a maximum return-to-player in order to ensure profitability. However, such return-to-player requirements are at odds with providing a player with meaningful, skill-based decisions that affect the player's odds of winning a prize, and/or affect the prize amount won by the player.
Some aspects of the present disclosure address the above technical problem of satisfying return-to-player requirements of gaming regulatory authorities and gaming machine operators while providing players with skill-based choices that affect their odds of winning and/or amounts won.